Kat Graham, who plays witch Bonnie Bennett, has confirmed she is leaving The Vampire Diaries. It is not too soon, though, as she will see out Season 8.

Fans now worry that the show simply cannot continue past Season 8. There are already rumors that Ian Somerhalder will walk away from Damon Salvatore, and now Graham has confirmed her decision to leave the show. Could The Vampire Diaries continue with just three members of the original lineup? That is assuming Paul Wesley, Candice King, and Zach Roerig will remain on the set.

TV Line received confirmation that Graham’s decision to depart The Vampire Diaries was true before reporting. There are various rumors doing the rounds at the moment, but this one is a definite. If the show is picked up for a Season 9, there will be no Bennett witch.

Some fans took to social media to say the character would not be missed too much. She has had few major, interesting storylines of her own since Season 3 and is used more as a plot device than anything else. However, there will be fans who are upset, specifically the LGBT community. It was only recently that The Inquisitr reported that Bonnie would make the best lesbian main character. There are already questions over her sexuality, and Graham had said that she would be happy to play a bisexual or lesbian Bonnie. She wants to add an extra layer to her character.

If the writers and Julie Plec do decide to make Bonnie bisexual, taking her out of the show could lead to them accidentally adding more to the “bury your gays” trope. They would have to tread carefully, and it now may not be best to has Bonnie discover her sexuality. It would be unfair to the LGBT community, knowing that the character would need to be written out.

bonnie bennett • the vampire diaries
– powerful witch
– died 1000x for her friends w/o a second thought pic.twitter.com/NCjJIWCetr

The only time it would be fair is if The Vampire Diaries Season 8 was the last anyway. Bonnie could live a happy life with a girlfriend, and there would be no feeding into the trope without meaning to.

If The Vampire Diaries does get picked up for Season 9 — and that could be unlikely considering the ratings drops already — the writers will have to find a way to write Bonnie out without killing her off. At the moment, Bonnie’s life force is connected to Elena’s. Nina Dobrev decided to leave the show after Season 6, and it does not look like she is coming back. If Bonnie dies, Elena would wake up from her coma. That means it is essential that the writers find a way around that or have Bonnie walk away from her friends and Mystic Falls.

Those who believe Bonnie does not have a big storyline will get the chance to see her get one during the second half of Season 7. She has already played a role with Damon to try to kill Rayna, and now Graham has said that Episodes 20 and 21 are her most exciting ones. She says those are the biggest episodes she has ever done on the vampire show.

There is still another year of the character on the show, so the writers have time to work things out. There is also the time for fans to really say goodbye to the character, in a similar way The Vampire Diaries gave fans that chance with Elena’s character.

The show continues on Friday nights at 8/7c on the CW channel. There are now a mixture of present day and flashbacks to show what happened on The Vampire Diaries while Damon allowed himself to desiccate.